King Kartikeya needs a bride. The more blue-blooded the better for him. Princess Lakshaya must marry to please her family. She is sick of being rejected by suitor after suitor. She must not fail this time.

But what when she finds that King Kartikeya is not who she thinks he is? Can she still go ahead with this marriage? Set in Early Middle Ages in India, Book 2 in the Kamboj Princesses Saga follows Lakshaya in her journey to discover the passion of her life and love. Find adventure, intrigue, history and romance in this sensual historical fiction, Book 2 in the Kamboj Princesses Saga.

Summerita Rhayne loves to write sensual and emotional romance. There’s no knowing when some quirky – or sometimes even not so quirky – happening in daily life might trigger her right brain and then she’s off craving a new story. She loves writing characters who learn and grow and find their way out of their troubles and emotional hang-ups. Hot, sensual heroes and sassy but sweet heroines mostly fit the bill in her stories. She also believes that a touch of humor never goes amiss in a book.

She divides her time between family, job and writing – and loves winding down with music, movies and the internet!

….. IS A JOURNEY THAT TAKES YOU AROUND THE WORLD, BRINGING TO LIFE THE HUMAN SIDE OF CONFLICTS THAT TEAR PEOPLE APART.

EXCERPT

The haunting images of people falling dead, as the flames of life were extinguished in a puff of smoke, danced before my eyes. I wanted to run.I wanted to shout. I wanted the pain coursing through my veins to end in a deafening blast. I wanted the dead back. The silence around was too loud for me. I couldn’t cope. Slowly, my dead-still surroundings started stirring and I became aware of the voices around me … some begging for mercy … some calling out to their loved ones … and what seemed perhaps, newly orphaned children crying piteously. I heard Death’s cape swish and flap in the sick winds that Murder blew. Images of corpses with a permanent scream locked into their faces were etched in my memory forever.

Kirthi Jayakumar is an writer, artist, activist and lawyer based out of Chennai, India. She is the founder of The Red Elephant Foundation and the A38 Foundation of International Law. Driven by the goals of peace and equality, Kirthi indulges in different mediums to express her dreams for the world around her. An optimist by ideology, an idealist by thought, a humanist by religion and an equal-ist by tionality, Kirthi is a global citizen. Her first book, Stories of Hope, earned her a nomination as one of among six Indian authors to watch out for, alongside the likes of Devdutt Pattanaik and Lavanya Sankaran.

Three intriguing women, Three Imperfect men, Three fascinating stories!

House of Love

Real estate agent Nikki Desai has a rule of not dating her clients. When she hosts an open house on a cold Dallas afternoon, she didn’t know what was in store for her. Much like Dallas’ unexpected weather, Karan Malhotra, a business consultant, walks into her life and challenges every belief she holds close to her heart. Karan manages to cajole Nikki, but is she making a mistake in breaking her rule by dating Karan?

Arranged Marriage

Arranged marriage – where love happens after marriage or does it? Ishan, a NRI from Dallas, Texas visits his home country, India and gets entangled in his parents’ plan to get him married. Sonali is a simple girl from a small town called Meerut and has no desire to leave India. However, she reluctantly agrees to marry Ishan. But when she settles with him in a foreign country, she is completely lost and homesick. Will Sonali find love in a conventionally arranged marriage?

Love Tango

Maya Sarin is sensuous and enterprising. She runs a dance school in the suburb of Dallas. Tahir Ali is an aspiring author who owns a Mediterranean restaurant in the area. When his regular dancer bails out on him, he rushes in Maya as a replacement. Maya is the inspiration that he had been longing for; she feeds his creative soul. Do they have any future together? Explore their passion and intrigue in Love Tango.

Aditi Chopra was born in India and now lives in Texas with her family. She writes NRI (Non Resident Indian) fiction and non-fiction books.

Aditi has an engineering background but she has found her creative bone in fiction writing. Her stories range from Contemporary Romance to Women’s Fiction. You might see a glimpse of Bollywood in her stories and will definitely enjoy the emotional ride.

Aditi focuses on leadership skills in her non-fiction books. Her readers get practical take-aways that they can utilize in their career.

I received the book Simple Plane love by Priyanka Luthra as a review copy from Rupa Publications and would like to thank Richa for the same. This is a simple book about Meera Khanna, an airline pilot. Hence, Plane and not plain. The book starts with Meera flying for the last time in Manila as she is packing her bags to go back to India. And then the whole story is in flashback till the last chapter when the book comes back to the present.

The Blurb:

Meet Captain Meera Khanna. As a first officer on an Aeroflot Aviation plane, with a luxurious apartment in the beautiful city of Manila, she seems to have it all. Flying to exotic destinations, navigating turbulent flights through typhoons and handling engine failure are all in a day’s work. Even when a leg injury forces Meera to take time off her busy schedule, she has the perfect solution—an exciting vacation to Subic Bay with her glamorous best friend Diana, aka Dee. And nothing could have been a better idea, what with the unexpected arrival of her childhood friend, the suave Aditya. But when Aditya seems to want more than friendship, it throws Meera off-kilter. Will Meera’s perfect life come to an abrupt landing? Or will she find her happily-ever-after?

In Simple Plane Love, join Captain Meera on a rollicking adventure, where navigating an aeroplane seems simpler than negotiating the many twists and turns of love.

The characters:

Meera Khanna, known as Em to her friends, is a commercial pilot who works for a chartered plane company in Manila. She hails from Mumbai and followed the footsteps of her father who was a pilot himself, much against her mother’s wishes. Diana, Dee, is her best friend. They met in college and have been confidantes ever since. She works as the editor of a fashion magazine and has an endless collection of bags and shoes. She does not believe is love. Aditya Kapoor, Adi, is also their best friend. He and Meera have been friends since childhood. He is a banker and is the person whom Em calls anytime for anything.

The story:

After qualifying as a captain, Meera gets a job in Manila in a chartered plane company under Captain Garcia, her boss. Then one day, she hurts her knee on one of the flights and is grounded for two weeks. So she makes use of the opportunity and calls Dee to be with her in manila when they can have a Girl vacation and does not invite Adi. The two of then go to Subic Bay for a vacation and meet an Indian sailor, Aryaman Rathore and Dee and Aryaman become friends. In Mumbai, Aditya cannot take it to be alone and ends up reaching Subic Bay and surprising Em in the process. He indicates that she is the one for him. She tries to dodge the subject.

Read on to find out Em’s feelings for Adi……

My take:

The book has been written in first person and the author being a pilot herself seems to have put in her flying experiences in the book. The story is simple and fast paced but I felt that the author could have added more interaction between Aditya and Meera, if this book was their love story.

I received the book Mr Imperfect Series (Complete collection) by Aditi Chopra as a review copy from the author herself, and I finished it the same evening as I received it, I just could not put it down, it was so captivating. This book has three books in one, namely, House of love; Arranged marriage and Love Tango. And I shall be reviewing the book story by story. All the three stories are set in Dallas and are somehow connected to each other by the way of characters. The second story is Arranged marriage.

As the book blurb mentions:

Three intriguing women, Three imperfect men, Three fascinating stories!

Arranged Marriage

Arranged marriage – where love happens after marriage or does it?

Ishan, a NRI from Dallas, Texas visits his home country, India and gets entangled in his parents’ plan to get him married. Sonali is a simple girl from a small town called Meerut and has no desire to leave India. However, she reluctantly agrees to marry Ishan. But when she settles with him in a foreign country, she is completely lost and homesick.

Will Sonali find love in a conventionally arranged marriage?

The Story:

Arranged Marriage:

Ishan Suri, 32, comes to India for a month long trip to spend quality time with his parents but is upset that all they are doing is asking him to get married. He fins the concept of arranged marriage too old-fashioned. One evening, he discusses this with his childhood friend, Ajay, who writes the address of his relative from Meerut, whose parents are also in search of a groom for her and stuffs it into his shirt pocket. And this bit of paper finds its way into the hands of Mrs Suri, who calls up the girl’s parents about meeting even before he gets up next morning, as the elder Suris think that Ishan is in love with this girl and is too shy to come out with it.

Sonali Thakur, 25, an English graduate does not want to get married to someone outside India but still meets the Suris only to get an affirmative answer. Two weeks later, Ishan and Sonali are married and packed off to the US. There Sonali makes friends with Maya and Nikki as Nikki’s husband, Karan, is Ishan’s friend. Initially, she is homesick but Ishan tries to make the adjustment easier for her. As the relationship between Ishan and Sonali starts moving forward, Nikki mentions Tina, Ishan’s ex-girlfriend.

My take:

Arranged marriage is a beautiful story about and NRI groom and an Indian girl, something that happens very commonly in India. The author has depicted the relationship of the protagonists beautifully and also their feelings. I felt that Sonali feeling insecure after Tina’s name popped up was something that was very natural.